Outsider II: Always Almost: Never Quite by Brian Sewell

The waspish art critic’s second, unflinchingly frank volume of autobiography picks up in 1967 and his friendship with Anthony Blunt

Brian Sewell talks about his daily rituals when writing his memoir in his Wimbledon study

T
he first volume of Brian Sewell’s autobiography, published last year,
recorded his youthful experiences as “a bastard and a bugger” and ended with
his leaving ­Christie’s in 1967. At that point he was known to the art trade
but not to the general public — his fame as the “friend” of Anthony Blunt
was yet to come. For several years he scuttled between Europe and America as
a dealer in Old Master drawings — the advantage of drawings, he explains, is
that, not being framed, they can easily be transported across borders
without the tedium of export controls. But he tells a shocking story about
another dealer who carried two £15,000 Watteau drawings on a plane to New
York tucked into the pages of Vanity Fair. He put the magazine in the seat
pocket in front of him and forgot about it — the Watteaus have never been
seen again.